The bill, which would ban sales of energy drinks to those 18 and younger, is inspired by 16-year-old Davis Cripe’s death in 2017 in South Carolina

A bill that would ban sales of energy drinks to those younger than 18 got little traction in the 2018 session of the Indiana General Assembly.(Photo: Dave Bangert/Journal & Courier)

LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The extended family of Davis Cripe, still dealing with the former Lafayette teen’s death in 2017, found themselves regrouping this week after watching a bill that might have made Indiana the first state to ban the sales of energy drinks to minors stall in the Statehouse.

The Senate bill was one of two Cripe’s family had been championing. The other is still going in South Carolina, where the 16-year-old died in his high school classroom after chugging an energy drink two years ago. The Indiana version was still sitting, unheard in the Senate Rules and Legislative Procedure Committee, as a Tuesday deadline passed to clear bills.

“I don’t think we looked that far down the line, to think that this might be something we’d have to work on long-term,” said Cheri Pruitt, Davis Cripe’s aunt, who lives in Lafayette.

Pruitt persuaded her hometown senator, Ron Alting, a Lafayette Republican, to author Senate Bill 369. She said she’d been warned early on by Alting’s staff at the Statehouse to be cautiously optimistic – that the lawmaker was “unsure if this bill will get a hearing.”

Pruitt said the family was happy that Alting was willing to at least put his name on a bill that would make it a misdemeanor to sell or give an energy drink – one with 80 milligrams or more of caffeine per nine fluid ounces – to anyone younger than 18. The penalty: Up to 60 days in jail and a fine of up to $500.

“I think we were just at the point where we were ready to start fighting for this and fighting for Davis,” Pruitt said. “I didn’t know what to expect. Except that it would be hard, seeing his picture and reliving what happened. It’s all still so raw.”

Davis Cripe was born in Lafayette, the son of Sean and Heidi Cripe, graduates of Lafayette Jefferson and Harrison high schools, respectively, and Purdue University. Davis went to Mayflower Mill Elementary before the family moved in 2009 to Chapin, South Carolina, where his parents bought and ran a Baskin-Robbins ice cream franchise.

Davis Cripe – a 16-year-old who liked to play the drums and who his dad said had a reputation “as the anti-drug guy at school” – died April 26, 2017, during class at Spring Hill High School, Chapin, South Carolina.

A coroner’s investigation determined that Davis Cripe bought and drank a latte from McDonald’s around 12:30 p.m. that day. He followed that with a large Mountain Dew. Later he had an energy drink, which the coroner didn’t identify by brand and that Sean Cripe said he still doesn’t know. He collapsed at 2:28 p.m. at his school and died a little more than an hour later at a local hospital.

Davis Cripe, a South Carolina 16-year-old, died in 2017 of what the coroner ruled was a “caffeine-induced cardiac event" caused, in part, to chugging an energy drink before a high school class. His family is fighting for a ban on sales of energy drinks to those younger than 18. A Senate bill proposing that has stalled in the 2019 Indiana General Assembly session.(Photo: Photo provided)

Richland County, South Carolina, Coroner Gary Watts ruled that the cause was a “caffeine-induced cardiac event causing a probable arrhythmia.” Watts said it wasn’t necessarily the amount of caffeine he drank – anywhere from 300 milligrams to close to 500 milligrams, depending on the energy drink he had – it was doing it in a short period of time, particularly when he downed the energy drink quickly near the end.

“That’s what hurts us,” Sean Cripe said this week. “We didn’t buy them for him. And we’d talked to him about how you had to watch caffeine in certain things. … For one of these to be fatal was just heartbreaking to us.”

A year ago, Davis Cripe’s story inspired a nearly identical bill to Senate Bill 369 that failed to advance in the South Carolina legislature in 2018. Sean Cripe said he’s been told lawmakers in South Carolina plan to try again during the 2019 session.

Alting said the energy drink issue was new to him. He suggested that the awareness created by filing the bill might be a start to raising awareness. But, given that fact that SB 369 wound up in a committee where bills are routinely shelved and was never scheduled for a hearing was telling, Alting said.

“No matter who carries it, it’s a sprint up a mountain,” Alting said, when asked if he’d be willing to author a similar bill in 2020. “Meaning an incredible challenge.”

Aside from Indiana and South Carolina, similar bills have failed in Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Iowa, New Hampshire, Kentucky and Maryland. The Connecticut legislature is considering a bill that would ban sales and distribution of energy drinks to those younger than 16.

In 2013, American Academy of Pediatrics officials, testifying before a U.S. Senate committee, called on stricter federal guidelines for energy drinks and how they were marketed to teens. They pointed to a growing number of emergency room visits – doubling from 10,068 in 2007 to 20,783 in 2011. The pediatrics group had concerns about the lack of research about the health effects of “high doses of caffeine, often in combination with other stimulant ingredients with unknown safety profiles,” found in energy drinks.

“Clearly, energy drink use and abuse is becoming a public health problem with significant costs and burdens to the health care system,” Dr. Marcie Beth Schneider of the American Academy of Pediatrics told the congressional panel.

Sean Cripe follows up by going straight to the source. Along with listings of caffeine – 114 milligrams in a 12-ounce Red Bull, 160 milligrams in a 16-ounce can of Monster, 300 milligrams in a 16-ounce can of Bang Purple Guava Pear – are warnings that the drinks aren’t meant for children. The one on the back of a can of Bang reads: “Not recommended for use by individuals under 18” for a product that has the same amount of caffeine in “more than two cups of coffee.” (A 12-ounce Coca-Cola Classic, by comparison, has 34 milligrams of caffeine.)

“At this point, we know we can’t get them to stop making the stuff, but we are at least trying to enforce something that they all admit – that these are drinks made for adults,” Sean Cripe said. “Most parents, kids or 20-somethings are not going to do the research. They see it on the shelf and assume it is safe, because otherwise they would not allow it to be sold. That’s why we must fight to wake up the public and try to push the FDA to act.”

“America’s mainstream energy drink companies have taken voluntary steps to ensure their products are not marketed to children and are not sold in schools,” William Dermody, a spokesman for the American Beverage Association, said. “Energy drinks have been enjoyed by millions of people around the world for more than 30 years and are recognized by government health agencies worldwide as safe for consumption.”

During testimony in early February on the Connecticut bill, Richard Adamson, a consultant for the American Beverage Association, argued that caffeine in coffee was much higher ounce for ounce that in energy drinks, according to an Associated Press report.

“Energy drinks contain half the caffeine of a drink from a coffee house and the same amount or lower than the coffee that you had in your own home this morning,” Adamson said.

Sean Cripe said he wish they would have. He said he wishes lawmakers and regulators would side with doctors.

“Do we feel like we’re in an uphill battle?” Sean Cripe asked. “Obviously, the answer to this is, Yes. But I compare it to the battle that was fought over cigarettes. At first people did not want to believe cigarettes were dangerous. It took a lot of education and tragedy to wake people up, and that's mainly because the cigarette makers were making so much money they were fighting tooth and nail. But now we look back, and it is so obvious.”

He said that if lawmakers need more, he’s prepared to tell the story of his son, the high school drummer who died two years ago in a high school classroom.

“People don’t know,” Sean Cripe said. “We were guilty of that, too. You knew it was unhealthy. Who knew it was deadly? We know now.”

TRACK THE BILLS

To read and track bills filed in this General Assembly session, go to in.gov/legislative and search by topic, bill number or legislator. Lawmaker email and phone numbers are there, too.

Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.